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Let Tom’s people go! Tom speeds around the ghetto, skitters in pursuit, giving a play-by-play recap of the chase in progress. He dumps the bike and runs up to the top of a fire escape, but the laser fence is still up. He burns the skitters at his heels with the flamethrower while yelling at someone to get the fence down.

Credits.

Title card: 60 HOURS EARLIER

Hal and Tom monitor the zeppelin and discuss Led Zeppelin. (Come on, Tom. Everyone knows IV is the best album.) Tom updates Hal on what he learned last episode, and how they need to de-tether the Espheni zeppelin from the laser fence. Dingann explains that the Faraday suit will cancel the fence’s electrical current for 90 seconds. He has to go over a fence post rather than through the fence, as the current is diminished at the posts. This show is straining my science-fu, which isn’t great to start. Dingaan is not happy they’re using the volatile ammonium nitrate to blow the tether: “This is a situation where everything needs to go right.” Way to jinx the escape there.

Ben downloads Maggie on Lexi’s meeting with the Overlord. He’s willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, given that they’ve been safe so far, but Maggie is pissed she bought Lexi’s peace-and-love spiel when she’s conspiring with the enemy. Ben urges caution even as Maggie straps on her double-shoulder harness. Ben really likes Maggie in the double-shoulder harness. Maggie is not big on betrayal. Big surprise there. Ben wants to talk to Lexi first, but Maggie is bringing her guns no matter what.

They confront Lexi while she teaches acolytes about the secrets of the triskelion—”one entity can merge with another to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.” Subtle. Lourdes protests Ben questioning Lexi, but Maggie shuts her down: “Drop the high-priestess routine.” Lexi easily admits to meeting with the Espheni, as they are a part of her and she is the bridge between the species. Maggie doesn’t buy it anymore, but when she draws her gun, Lexi breaks her wrist with one squeeze. Fortunately, Maggie has a gun for each hand. Lexi claims the Espheni want peace, but if Maggie draws her guns again, it will no longer be safe for any of them. Forget it, Maggie. It’s Chinatown.

At EJ, Sheila has done her job and betrayed rescued her parents, who are now headed to a concentration camp transitional facility. Kent trots the parents in for show-and-tell, spewing propaganda about how now everyone will work together in the Espheni’s better world. Kent praises Sheila for turning in being loyal and saving her parents, and knows Matt the others will do same. Later, Mira worries the EJ are going to break them, and plans to escape using a pair of stolen wire cutters before she turns too. Matt freaks out, and rightly so, as Kent does a bed check in the morning and finds the cutters where Mira hid them under an empty bed. Before Kent can punish everyone or Mira can confess, Matt claims responsibility.

Tom and Dingaan scout the tether. Tom lectures his captive audience about Geronimo, whom he plans to emulate by drawing the skitters off to an ambush while Dingaan goes over the laser fence. Pay attention in history class, kids, and you too can one day use it to escape an alien ghetto. Dingann is worried about his own neck if Tom’s plan doesn’t work. Tom believes they have to save everyone, because the 2nd Mass is his new family and the only thing that’s kept him going. He wants Dingaan to be a part of that. “Without family, life is not much worth much living,” he says.

Anne and the freedom fighters are still headed west, or at least until Anne finally collapses from exhaustion and dehydration.

Tom lays out the plan—again—for Hal, Weaver, Tector, Dingaan and Pope. Once Dingaan blows the tether and the laser fence is down, Hal will lead the population out through the sewer tunnels, after which Tom and Weaver will blow their prison building to crush the skitters chasing Tom through the ‘hood.

Pope pokes holes in the plan and is insulted that Tom trusts “Dingo” more than him. But since the whole camp is scheduled for mysterious processing in two days, they have no choice but to work together on the crazy plan, even though Pope’s not buying the whole “humanoid skitters” threat. Go team!

Montage time! Tector goes off to build a bomb. Hal corrals the populace for their exodus. Weaver works on destabilizing the building while Tector sets the charges. The night before battle, Weaver keeps watch over the explosives. Tom joins him with a bottle of Scotch. They toast the mission and Jeanne’s birthday. Tom finally takes a moment to worry about his baby mama.

Anne is lost in a fever flashback to her time imprisoned on the mothership, when Karen hooked up Anne’s pregnant belly full of baby Lexi to the Overlord via an Espheni umbilical cord. Creeeepy.

Tom takes his summit meeting with the Overlord. He’s got the map and watch strapped on his arm over his coat, so this is where we came in. The Overlord crows over Tom’s perceived submission: “Resistance will only ensure the extinction of your species.” Tom calls off the deal and sets the Overlord on fire. Apocalyptic diplomacy in action! The Overload falls for the ruse and orders all arms to pursue Tom.

And we’re back in the cold open, with Tom pursued by skitters through the ghetto. Dingaan prepares to don the Faraday suit, but a chasing skitter knocks a pipe off a roof onto his hand, breaking his wrist. Pope has to don the suit, while Dingaan gives him the best tutorial ever: “Beep beep beep beep—BOOM!” He’s got 90 seconds to get over the fence before he’s Vaporized Pope, not to be confused with Pope on a Rope. Incidentally, the suit makes Pope look like he got cut from tryouts for the Knights Who Say “Ni.” He gets up the fence post and when a black hornet attacks, Weaver uses his homemade RPG to shoot it into the still-live laser fence. As he reaches the top, Pope drops the bomb … literally. It falls off his shoulders onto the wrong side of the laser fence.

Hal hurries everyone they could find into the sewers. Tom rides through the ghetto. Weaver grouses that Pope is going to bail and save himself. Instead, Pope drops down to retrieve the bomb and try again. Now Weaver worries he won’t have enough time before the suit falls apart. Hal and his group wait while the two oldest people in the world slowly make their way to the rendezvous, catching a loitering skitter’s attention along the way. At the top of the post, the suit fails Pope and the current tosses him off onto the far side of the fence, unconscious.

The skitters follow the old couple to Hal’s group, but he does his dad proud defending them. Pope wakes up and blows the tether, but one strand remains and the laser fence stands. Hal and the others battle skitters. Tom runs into the solitary prison and onto the fire escape and burns the skitters. Pope takes an ax to the tether strand and the laser fence goes down. Tom blows the building and jumps into a lake. Hal’s people run through. Tect and Digaan jump on Pole. Weaver watches them: “Son of a bitch. Pigs can fly.”

Anne wakes up and realizes Lexi is close. Anthony wonders how she knows. “I had a dream,” she says. Where one day Espheni will be able to join hands with humans and … wait, wrong dream. My bad.

Cochise has found the EJ school and recognizes Matt as he’s led away by Kent’s stooges.

In Chinatown, Ben tries to reason with Lexi about Maggie. Lexi pays him no attention, as she’s already focused on Anne’s imminent arrival. She’s scared by the things she hears and sees: “I need you.” Anne creeps past the frozen mech and find Lourdes, Ben and Lexi. She immediately recognizes her daughter.

Pope indulges in fake modesty over his success, while Tom and Hal reunite again. They commiserate over those lost. Tom congratulates Pope, who tells him to trust more and counters Tect saying that he didn’t drop the bomb, but recovered his own fumble. He and Tom do that manly one-arm-hug-with-a-back-pat thing; meanwhile, Weaver moves away from the group and gazes up the hill at a new kind of alien just out of sight. Tom pulls him back and asks if he’s all right. “Just thought I’d heard something,” he replies.

End credits.

Finally they’re out of the ghetto! Think this episode is a step forward? Who’s betting that the creature Weaver saw is an already-been-processed Jeanne? Will Anne fall under Lexi’s sly spell? Sound off in the comments!